The half glass

“Don’t be such a defeatist.”

Gertrude Stein

From: Midnight in Paris – 2011

This week has been approved the so called Jobs act, the labour market reform resembling a bit a video game (apparently to win a permanent job you have to complete one level after the other…), @matteorenzi’s boast, the reform rewarding the heroic Italian businessmen and entrepreneurs (the youngest prime minister etc… called them heroes not so long ago) making dismissals less complicated. Once sacked, no matter why, a worker in the majority of cases won’t have any chance to have his work back, she/he will receive a compensation that will be higher and free of tax if she/he will be a good girl/boy and won’t sue the ex employer (WOW!). In the meantime the latest International Labour Office (Ilo) Global Wage Report say that Italian wages are falling while ISTAT confirmed that 4 pensioners out of 10 lives with less than 1000 euro per month (and among them many lives with much, much, much less). If you think this is not enough this week an anti-mafia operation revealed that in Rome an illegal organisation (led by an “unsuspected” former member of a 1970’s terrorist far-right group called NAR and of a criminal organization called Banda della Magliana – active throughout late 1970s til the early 1990’s – portayed in a famous italian film called Romanzo Criminale by the once teen idol Riccardo Scamarcio…) not only controlled, backed by left-wing and right-wing politicians, every public work in Rome but also earned millions stealing funds intended for Roma people’s camps, and migrants and refugees centers (then someone still say that the poor are worth nothing…). Last but not least, this evening Standard and Poor’s announced that despite the Jobs Act, that will not produce new jobs, our Country’s rating is going to be downgraded once more…

Today CENSIS (a social study and research institute) published its 48°annual report revealing that after a six-year-long crisis Italian people are not inclined to spend their money, fear to become suddenly poor, are discouraged and mistrust other people. Now, someone could say we are defeatists, a bunch of “owls” only able to see the glass half empty, but you must admit we got some reason to behave that way.